In one instance, a customer said they had just left a long-term violent relationship and could no longer afford their repayments. “I have no support … I have a large number of bills and cannot pay them,” the customer was quoted as telling NAB.

In another, one person said their family of five all contracted COVID-19 and the husband – who was the last person to become infected with the disease – was required to isolate for more than five weeks as a result of quarantine rules.

“My husband works for himself and we had absolutely no income coming in for almost two months,” the customer said. “We are trying to catch up but it is proving very difficult when we are so far behind on our mortgage and all other bills. I too did not have enough sick leave to cover me for all the time I had to take off work due to COVID and looking after the family members.”

In some cases, customers waited years to hear back from NAB on their applications, according to ASIC.

NAB self-reported the matter to ASIC in October 2023, a month after the regulator announced it had launched Federal Court proceedings against Westpac for similar failures.

In that case, ASIC has alleged that between 2015 and 2022, Westpac did not respond to 229 customer requests for a hardship application within the required 21 days.

ASIC has put the broader financial lending industry on notice after its report earlier this year found customers in financial distress were being let down by a “cookie-cutter approach” to dealing with hardship requests, and onerous processes.

That review looked at the way Westpac, NAB, ING, Commonwealth Bank, Bank of Queensland, Macquarie and Bendigo Bank, as well as non-bank lenders Resimac, Pepper Money and Liberty Financial, handled hardship applications.

Longo told Senate estimates in June that there were matters which “may or may not go to court” as a result.

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